Password Security

With the myriad of password we are asked to use, and the constant changing of passwords, it hard to keep track of it all isn’t it?And when you write them down, and attempt to hide it somewhere, you’re in danger of losing that piece of paper and letting someone use your identity to do what ever nefarious thing they want to do. Some of you may argue that you don’t have anything sensitive on your computer. That’s not what the hacker wants anymore, they just want to use your computer to do their dirty work; and it’ll all be traced back to you.Well, to better maintain password, we’ve found a little program that you can use to track your passwords.

It’s encrypted so if anyone gets a hold of the file, they will not be able easily to tease out your list of passwords.

It doesn’t require installation so you can take it from one computer to the next one without worrying about reinstalling the correct software in order to get back to these passwords (the last solution we tested ran into this problem when we started to deploy new computers).

It’s password protected!

I know “!another password to remember!” But, you can start to forget those other passwords since they’ll be in this one file. You just need to have access to this file, to gain access to all those other passwords.Caution: don’t forget the password to this file as you’ll then lose access to all your other passwords. Yes I realize that this is putting all your eggs in one basket, but it’s less risky than writing down all your passwords and losing that piece of paper.We will continue to search for a better solution.Until then, the instructions for LockNote:In your My Documents folder is a file called LockNote.exe: (I know you’ve been cautioned not to open files that end with exe, and you should be concerned about files that end in exe, but this exe is safe to run). Please open it.It will ask you for a password. The initial password we’ve put on it can be obtained from tech support

No, this not a very secure password and you should change it (instructions to do so are following, and if you don’t change it, some hacker will discover it and you’re in trouble).

The program is like a little simple notepad program, nothing too fancy.The first thing you’ll want to do is go under the File menu command and chose “Change Password . . .”

This is the first password you used to open the program:(obtained from tech support)Iin case you leave it open, this will guard against someone changing the password without knowing the original password.

Please type in a secure password, that you can remember, but that can’t be easily guessed (you don’t want a hacker gaining access to this file and getting all your passwords).Type it in a second time to make sure the program has it correct.

You’ve successfully changed the password.

Now to start filling it in. Find all those little pieces of paper you have hidden around your office and type them into this LockNote program. When you’re finished, close LockNote, and it’ll ask you if you want to “Save Changes”, click Yes and it’s saved.(there’s not a “Save” command, just close it, it’ll ask if you want to save your changes)You can reopen LockNote to verify that your password works, and your list is there.

Now go shred those pieces of paper . . .

LockNote does have a Save As menu command, with which you can save a copy of this program and your list.You can go to My Computer if you want to save it to a floppy or a flash drive (to store away in a safe). I would suggest you do so.You can even take a copy of this program home (it’s free).Please remove all your passwords from this copy as you don’t want your work password list at home.

Give it a password.Don’t create a copy of this just because you can. You might lose which copy of LockNote has the most recent password. And you don’t want multiple copies out there, one of which someone could find and attempt to break into (doable if the password is an easy password).Realize that any changes you make after running the ‘Save As’ command are saved to the original file. So it would best if you closed LockNote down to make sure you know which version you’re working on.